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Taylor Swift’s father ‘safe’ after fight with intruder in $4m Florida penthouse

Incident follows a number of unrelated break-ins at homes owned by pop star daughter

Adam White
Tuesday 18 February 2020 08:55 GMT
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Scott Swift, the father of Taylor Swift, was left unharmed after fighting off an intruder who broke into his $4m (£3.1m) Florida penthouse.

The Merrill Lynch stockbroker, 67, returned to his home in the Vinoy Place Towers on 17 January to find a 30-year-old man, Terrence Hoover, in the property.

Hoover had allegedly entered the home through an emergency stairwell.

An altercation ensued, before Hoover fled the property on foot. He was arrested on 12 February and subsequently charged with burglary, after Mr Swift identified him during a police line-up.

Hoover’s mother, Donna DeNapoli, told the Tampa Bay Times that her son was merely lost, and hadn’t deliberately broken into Swift’s home.

She claimed that he was “looking for churches by the water,” and “should be charged with only trespassing”.

While Taylor Swift was not with her father at the time of the burglary, she herself has experienced a number of break-ins in recent years.

In 2018, a prolific stalker of the pop star was found to have broken into Swift’s New York townhouse and slept and showered there, while Swift was absent from the property.

He would be arrested for a similar crime in 2019.

In September 2019, a different man was charged with wilful trespassing after breaking into Swift’s Rhode Island mansion.

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